Earlier today, several top designers at HTC were arrested in Taipei under suspicion of fraudulent expense claims, as well as stealing trade secrets ahead of leaving the company to run a new mobile design firm in both Taiwan and mainland China. Five people were interrogated, with the most notable ones being Vice President of Product Design Thomas Chien, R&D director Wu Chien Hung and design team senior manager Justin Huang (who also personally sketched out the One's design). Chien and Wu are taken into custody, whereas the others were released on bail. Their offices were also raided yesterday as part of the investigation.

The fact that this phone is made from aluminium, and not whipped cream is a clear design choice.

Oh, I KNOW it was a design choice. It goes back to my original post on the topic:

HTC's trade secret - 'color it silver and make it aluminum, and we can sell a crapton based on its sex appeal, for shallow people looking for a fashion accessory to show off to their friends.'

Perhaps you should write some sort of angry letter to someone. Maybe you'll feel better after that. Be sure to include brands like BMW and Mercedes in the list. Tell them to stop making luxury cars out of premium materials, since it doesn't make sense.

People keep talking about the aluminum on the HTC One as if it were a premium material, but it really isn't. Any well-made plastic phone will take a beating just as well (or more likely, as poorly) as the HTC One will. If you drop any one of them naked on a hard surface, your phone is not likely to survive without injury.

I don't like aluminum because, having held an HTC One in one hand and an S4 in the other, the HTC One is considerably heavier. But hey, if you like believing that a shiny device must be a premium device, who am I to argue with preference? My only issue is that this sort of nonsense has become the very FIRST thing people are looking at, and they do so without caring much about any other aspect of a device. It forces vendors into focusing primarily on the cosmetics, which IMO, should be the very LAST thing to consider when paying hundreds of dollars for something like this. Like, people were mad that the S4 looked almost just like the S3. Well, why should I give a shit? It's not like the S3 was horribly designed to begin with. Why do they need to re-invent the wheel every f--king year?

See, HTC took a page right out of Apple's playbook. Apple is keen on shipping products with half the functionality of the competition, while at the same time brainwashing the masses into believing that because it has a shiny exterior, than it must be a premium device, and therefore worthy as a fashion accessory. And now phones are coming out with their #1 selling point that you can get it in 300 different colors. Brings my piss to a boil

You don't get it. Leather also scratches, and it requires constant maintenance. People still like leather in cars ... why? Because it looks and feels nice.

Diamonds are expensive because they're rare and shiny. Same goes for gold. Gold is pretty much useless as a material, except for the fact that it makes a very, very good conductor and it reflects heat like nothing else.